New Earth

The Earth is a changed planet. Technology evolved us, invaded our lives and then it enslaved us.

We developed the simple barter system into much more complex and nuanced systems of acquiring things. We traveled further and further away from our homes until we discovered other cultures that we didn’t understand, and we called them barbarians so that we could try to tame each other.

Then we discovered technology, a new kind of fire that we could not control. It began with a wheel, steam engine and a light bulb that gave way to sky scrapers and rocket ships, the internet. Science continues to fuel our ongoing conversation with the Universe and little by little she is revealing her most closely guarded secrets to us, but what have we learned so far?

We continue to find ways that cause a divide by a language or a name or a weaker sex or a darker skin color. These are issues that should feel out of place in this century. Genetics will tell you that race is not a real thing. It derives from our places of origin, not as a construct of the Universe. Anatomy will tell us that men and women are different but we are not different enough to qualify as a different species. So how is it that women are sometimes excluded from the definition of ‘humans’ to whom basic human rights are owed? We are all made the same, with skin and bones and blood and veins. How is it that the only thing that matters isn’t kindness and love and brotherhood?

We can hold a world of knowledge in the palm of our hand, a world that we can barely understand; only this time we are the barbarians that need to be tamed by it.

If I could imagine a different world, I would re-imagine this one, with inhabitants that have a greater capacity to understand one another in a way that reflects our own understanding of the Universe. A species that can travel to the moon and back can surely figure out how to treat each other with common decency.

Our minds continuously refuse to be contained by both its intelligence and stupidity.